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Het laatste konvooi (Vandersteen comic)/plot
Biggles and Helga are married and enjoying their honeymoon at a coastal resort in a Middle Eastern country. It's not a busy hotel, and there are few guests, including one Major Herbert Carr, a former officer of the British Army, Kurt Geisling, a rock star, Lewis Bince, an American industrialist with his wife Carla and daughter Peggy, and a French journalist Helene Frasier. The atmosphere is relaxed and Biggles hardly notices the radio reports of an insurrection among the mountain tribes in the hinterland. But the next day, some armed troops arrive and an unmarked aircraft dives at the hotel, firing its weapons into the compound. A local army officer tells the guests that rebels under Kebir Saloum are approaching the capital and had captured the railway and harbour. As the army cannot guarantee their safety, they must depart the hotel immediately. The army gives the guests a truck and a jeep and a few weapons. They must try to make it to safety at the Oasis of Sheba before the rebels catch up with them. Helga goes to help Helene pack but she refuses the offer. Helene struggles to bring her several cases to the truck and one of them drops. Helene quickly closes it but Helga catches sight of a portable radio transmitter! The party sets off on their long journey. In the morning of the second day, they stop for breakfast. Helga notices that Helene has gone off and is transmitting on her radio. But whatever Biggles makes of this, the convoy is soon strafed by a pair of fighters. Helene tells Biggles the radio is for her to send messages as a journalist. In any case the discussion is moot--it had been destroyed by air raid. The convoy decides to take a short cut through the desert and soon reaches an apparently deserted village. But it turns out to be an ambush by some rebels. They successfully extricate themselves. In the process, Kurt saves Lewis from a sniper and the two of them, who never got along, begin to realise the importance of working together. At another stop, Carla asks Peggy to take her suitcase. Peggy brings the wrong case--one which belongs to Helene. Carla opens it by mistake and it turns out to be full of dynamite! Biggles thinks Helene owes them an explanation. First a radio, then dynamite. Who exactly is she? Helene refuses to answer and offers to go off on her own in the jeep. But Lewis says she can't do that. They have bigger problems: the firefight during the ambush resulted in some water tanks being holed. They have to ration what little water they have left. They bivouac for the night but in the morning comes another mishap. A snake has crawled inside Major Carr's sleeping bag! They try various means to get it to come out but it is not until midday that the reptile pokes its head out. Biggles grabs and shoots it in the head and the danger is averted and the journey continues. Biggles calls another halt when he spots a damaged tank on a dune. Lewis, back to his querulous self, demands that Carr ignore Biggles and drive on but the Major refuses. Biggles is soon proven right to stop: the tank was destroyed by a mine. They are in a minefield! Before they know it, Peggy has strayed from the truck and Biggles has to rescue her, crawling along the sand and throwing heavy rocks ahead of him to clear the way of mines. During this process, Helene spots two camel-mounted men and decides to hop onto the jeep and drive off. But she soon hits a landmine. The jeep is destroyed but she is thrown clear and only slightly injured. Biggles demands the truth now but still Helene stubbornly refuses to say anything. She wants to go off on her own. But how? As Biggles tells her, the jeep is wrecked and she doesn't even know the way. The truck approaches a hut in the desert. They enter the hut cautiously and find an unconscious Arab. They give him some water and he tells them he is Ben Rashoud, a goat herder. Some rebels took his goats and water supply, leaving him to die. They take Rashoud with them but water is running low. At another stop, Helene helps by spreading a plastic sheet over a hole to collect water by condensation of the moisture in the air and ground. Biggles is surprised that she would know such survival techniques. What's more, Kurt had been on guard and saw a camel rider. Helene denies seeing one. Why is she lying? However a sandstorm strikes next and causes extensive damage. The truck is half buried in the sand, their map is blown away and even the plastic sheet, their only means to collect water, is gone. The party members spread out to search for the plastic sheet but it is hopeless. Biggles is about to call the searchers back when he hears shooting. He runs to the source of the sound and sees Helene prone on the ground firing a rifle. What's going on? Helene tells them she was shooting at Rashoud. He is a rebel spy. She saw him releasing all the petrol from the truck and all their remaining water. Kurt cannot understand why the rebels are so intent on interfering with them. Biggles thinks it must have something to do with Helene but she again refuses to say anything. She only asks that she be allowed to leave the party and go on alone. But in any case the discussion is interuppted by the arrival of a group of camel riders bearing a white flag. Biggles goes up to them unarmed to parley. They want Biggles to surrender Helene to them! They will return for Biggles' answer in 24 hours. The party breaks up into an argument over what to do. Lewis, predictably, thinks the entire party should not be endangered because of Helene. Kurt, on the other hand, thinks the whole party should stick together. A fight breaks out but Helene silences everyone with a warning shot. She will still not reveal exactly who she is, but she will not endanger the party either, so she will give herself up. Biggles won't hear of it but in the night, while the others are asleep, she sneaks away from the camp anyway. At daybreak, Major Carr alerts Biggles to Helene's disappearance and he goes off in search of her. He finds her nearby, overcome with exhaustion in the sand. Two camel riders have seen her and are heading for her. The camel riders fire at Biggles but he replies with his submachine gun and kills both of them. Biggles gives Helene the last of his water. She tells him that since all is lost, she might as well reveal the truth. She went off because she believed the rebel camp must be nearby. She works for the secret service and her mission was to find the supply bases of the rebellion. But she had been taken by surprise by the turn of events and now she had led the whole party into danger. Biggles agrees the rebel camp must be nearby. He decides to find it himself, although Helene can't understand why. They move forward and soon discover the rebel base in a small oasis. Biggles sends Helene back to the truck. She is to bring Major Carr and Kurt back with her bag of dynamite. Biggles opens fire on the rebel camp. He must keep the rebels in the oasis until the Major and Kurt arrive. At first he is able to pin the rebels down but soon they move out of their camp to try to outflank him. Biggles runs out of ammunition and is hit. It will soon be over. But then heavy explosions rock the rebel camp. The Major and Carr have arrived! The rebels are thoroughly surprised by this new danger in their rear and flee into the desert. A victorious Kurt takes one of the rebel trucks to bring the good news to the others and drives them to the oasis. The convoy is resupplied and continues on its way. They soon reach their destination where aircraft are waiting to take them home. The party is jubilant. Kurt, in particular, wonders what he can say about his adventure. With no band has he ever made as much noise as he had with the dynamite. Helga, on the other hand, wonders wryly. What a honeymoon and what a dangerous man she has married. What more must she go through with Biggles? Category:Plot summaries (derivative works)